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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative importance of different sources of finance for agricultural and non-agricultural investments using unique Smallholder Financial Diaries collected by Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) in Mozambique, Pakistan and Tanzania at the individual and household level.

Following the analytical framework of variance decomposition developed in Samphantharak and Townsend (2010), this study develops a method to quantify how much each cash deficit associated to investments and expenses of interest co-move with different financing sources.

This paper finds that self-finance, rather than formal or informal finance from external providers, is the main financing source for long-term and short-term smallholder agricultural investments. Further, the paper finds that the main source of self-finance varies depending on the economic opportunities faced by smallholders, with non-agricultural income as the dominant financing source for some, while agricultural income dominating for others.

Given CGAP’s Smallholder Financial Diaries is not nationally representative, research results should be interpreted carefully. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to analyze financing sources for smallholder households making use of high frequency financial data for individuals in developing countries.

These findings imply that financial inclusion policies specifically targeting smallholders and the agricultural sector would benefit from enabling the development of an ecosystem of diverse financial services that respond simultaneously to both agriculture and non-agriculture needs.

This is paper furthers the authors’ knowledge on how smallholder households are financing their agricultural investments. Moreover, it applies methods in new ways to exploit a unique data set.

One of the challenging factors in achieving sustainable growth is the inability of the Nigerian government to diversify the country's revenue base. This study aims to investigate the relationship between cash crop financing and agricultural performance in Nigeria.

Four crops were considered, namely, cotton, cocoa, groundnut and palm oil. The impact of cash crop finance shock on agricultural performance was investigated using the vector error correction model (VECM), while the long-run relationship was examined through the identification of long-run restrictions on the VECM.

The variance decomposition showed that financing shock is more sensitive to cause variation in aggregate employment than aggregate agricultural output in palm oil, while for cocoa, cotton and groundnut showed otherwise. The long-run structural equations exert a positive relationship between cash crop financing and agricultural performance, except for oil palm and cocoa financing that has a negative connection with agrarian employment.

The study is limited to the unavailability of data for agriculture sector capital utilisation, which was not used.

These results show that long-run benefit can be maximised by appropriate funding in cotton and groundnut production to promote sustainable growth.

The study examines the impact of cash crop financing on agricultural performance with the aim to promote sustainable growth in Nigeria using identified VECM.

The purpose of this study is to identify and review strategic government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. Four factors dictated the choice of these countries. In the first place, the study is set in African emerging markets – and the four countries are the widely acknowledged emerging markets in Africa (Onyiriuba, 2015). Secondly, the spread of the countries, to a large extent, mirrors Africa in general – Egypt and Morocco are in North Africa; Nigeria is a West African country; and, of course, South Africa. Thirdly, other countries in Africa tend to look up to the four countries, apparently as the largest economies in their respective regions. Needless to say, Nigeria alternates with South Africa as the largest economy in Africa. In this capacity, the two countries influence – indeed, mirror – continental Africa's emerging economic progress. Fourthly, lessons from agricultural policy and financing experiences of the four countries will certainly be useful to the other African countries. The specific objective of this paper is to determine how the government seeks to address the financing issues attendant on the risk-laden nature of agriculture through policy interventions. With this end in view, the paper analyses the strategic goals, objectives and beneficiaries of the agriculture financing policies of the government, as well as the constraints on access to finance by the farmers and the policy response.

The study involves a review of empirical literature and government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. The high risks in agriculture (Onyiriuba, 2015; Mordi, 1988), risk aversion behaviour of banks towards agricultural financing (Onyiriuba, 2015, 1990), and the reluctance of insurers to take on agricultural risks (World Bank, 2018; Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2016; Onyiriuba, 1990; Mordi, 1988) underpin this methodology. There are two other considerations: the needs to find out how government seeks to address the financing issues in agriculture through policy intervention, and to avoid unwieldy research, one that combines government and institutional policy perspectives on agriculture financing. Thus the study is not approached from the perspective of banks and other lending institutions; neither does it combine government and institutional policy perspectives. It rather focuses on government policy in order to properly situate implications of the findings.

The authorities seek to get rid of bottlenecks, ease participation and redress constraints on access to finance in agriculture through policy interventions as a means of sustainable economic growth. The findings are characteristic of emerging markets, rooted in the transitional challenge of opening economies, economic reforms and the March of progress. However, with agriculture and natural resources – rather than industrialisation – as the main stay of their economies, the African emerging markets face an uphill task in their development efforts. This is evident in the divergent and gloomy pictures in which the literature paints their agricultural economies.

Government should gear financing policies to boost output as a means of ensuring food security. It should address risk aversion tendencies among the lenders and feeble credit guarantee, subsidies and budgetary allocations to agriculture. This will ensure effective commitment of the lenders to agriculture and underpin agricultural insurance. However, it demands strengthening links in the chain of access to, and monitoring of, credit for agricultural production. A realistic policy response should target the rural economy – with youth, women and smallholder farmers as ultimate beneficiaries. These actions should be intensified as measures to boost farming and the rural economy.

Current literature fails to situate the empirical findings in emerging markets context, reflecting economies in transition. Besides, in its current state, the literature does not explicitly clarify that agriculture, like most other sectors in such economies, is bound to experience the observed financing constraints. Neither does it clearly reflect how and why the findings should be seen as fleeting realities of the March of progress in transitional economies. This study will help to fill the gap.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, present and compare agricultural production financing alternatives available to grain producers in South Africa. From the South African perspective, agricultural land cannot always be utilised as collateral and therefore alternative financing has developed.

The study makes use of an exploratory study by applying qualitative techniques. The research population was agricultural finance providers in South Africa and semi‐structured interviews were conducted with representatives of the sample.

The production financing alternatives identified and presented include: grain contract financing; grain contract financing with additional collateral; and corporate farming. A comparison of these alternatives indicates that although the traditional balance sheet financing is a cheaper form of financing, using agricultural land as collateral has a number of limitations, especially within the South African context.

Using agricultural land as collateral to obtain production financing is not always viable considering the present South African agricultural environment. Commercial grain producers should therefore consider the identified alternative production financing.

Limited research on agricultural production finance from the South African perspective has been performed. Furthermore, no previous research on identifying production financing alternatives without utilising agricultural land as collateral has been performed. This paper therefore provides new knowledge by combining South African practice with theory.

This paper aims to provide a “biography” of sorts on Agricultural Finance Review. The paper tracks the evolution of Agricultural Finance Review from its introduction in 1938 to its current status.

The paper is based on a complete review of every paper and every issue. Not all papers were read by the author, but key papers of interest that in one way or another made significant contributions to the study of agricultural finance were reviewed.

The paper shows the evolution of agricultural finance from the early days of reporting financial data in the 1930s and 1940s, to its emergence as a major and significant sub discipline of the general field of agricultural economics.

As indicated, not all papers were fully reviewed or read. It is possible that papers identified as “firsts” may have been preceded by other papers. Nonetheless the paper identifies the basic evolutionary path of the journal and defines key points in time when a paradigm shift emerged to change the direction of this discipline.

As Agricultural Finance Review transitions from the Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University to Emerald Group Publishing Limited, this “biography” provides readers with a general overview of the journal's and the discipline's historical development.

This paper is simply a review of the existing literature found in Agricultural Finance Review.

This paper aims to study Qard-al-Hasan (QH) (good loan) from the stand point of its possible application to agricultural farming with a view to augmenting the sources of Riba (interest)-free agricultural financing for Muslim farmers of Islamic countries like Pakistan.

This paper is a study of QH (good loan) from the stand point of its possible application to agricultural farming with a view to augmenting the sources of Riba (interest)-free agricultural financing for Muslim farmers of Islamic countries like Pakistan.

The study reports that Riba-free financing is essentially needed by poor Muslim farmers who, owing to prohibition of Riba, do not rely on interest (Riba)-based financing. The study also shows that QH is a viable option for fulfilling this need and is beneficial for the farmers as well as for the Islamic banks or financial institutions.

The case of QH as a potential mode of agricultural financing, as presented in this paper, is based on a theoretical or conceptual framework. The findings need to be further substantiated with empirical evidence. A future study, based on reliable empirical data would certainly add value to the subject.

Islamic banks and financial institutions typically rely on Musharakah (partnership), Murabaha (sale with profit), Ijarah (leasing), Salam (advance payment sale), Istisna’ (manufacturing contract), etc., and they rarely use QH as a mode of financing. Despite its huge utility, QH is practically non-existent in its application as an agricultural financing instrument. This paper presents a case for QH that can be adopted by Islamic banks or financial institutions for provision of the much needed financing for the small farmers of Islamic countries, as well as those living in non-Islamic countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence farmers' preference for the use of Islamic banks in Turkey and to investigate their knowledge level and perception about Islamic finance.

Survey data used in this study is obtained by drawing a sample of 1902 farmers who are members of the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives Union (ACCU) from 37 provinces of Turkey. Pearson's Chi-square test is used to analyze the association between the demographic features of farmers, conventional bank usage and Islamic bank usage. Binary logistic regression model is used to estimate the factors influencing the preference for Islamic banks. Explanatory variables include knowledge on Islamic banking and finance, perception of compliance to religion, saving ability and cost concern along with the control variables of Islamic bank branch number in the region and age of respondent. Robustness check is conducted via alternative models using ordinary least squares (OLS) and logistic regression.

Less than 10% of the participant farmers use Islamic banks and 59% declare they know nothing about Islamic banking. Age, education level, income level, nonagricultural income level, saving ability, duration of working in agriculture, land size and region are significantly related to farmers' preference of using Islamic banks. Knowledge level, perception of religious compliance, saving ability and cost concern are statistically significant factors that influence the probability of using Islamic banks.

This study does not include the analysis of the relationship between being religious and using Islamic banks because questions related to the assessment of religious practice were excluded due to the ACCU's sensitivity to investigate personal beliefs. Therefore, future studies can expand the scope of this research by investigating religiousness. The sample is chosen from the ACCU members who are already benefiting from a formal source of credit; therefore, the results should not be attributed to all farmers.

Islamic banks and microfinance institutions' further engagement in the agricultural sector and ACCU's implementation of Islamic finance instruments.

Islamic banks' further diversification in the agricultural sector and ACCU's implementation of Islamic finance instruments.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the farmers' perception and preference of Islamic banking in Turkey. The sample size of 1902 is much larger and geographically diversified compared to studies in agricultural finance. This study will be valuable for the agricultural finance empirical studies in Turkey as well as an important addition to the emerging literature on Islamic finance.

This paper aims to explore patterns of business financing and adoption of blockchain technology in the agricultural industry. The adoption of blockchain technology in terms of recording, storing, validating and securing data can solve a variety of agricultural problems such as agricultural business financing. If the banking and insurance industries are connected in real-time to activity data in the agricultural industry, they can create better credit ratings and profile models. So, finally, all parties in the agricultural industry have a greater chance to get business financing from banks.

This paper uses a case study research approach with a framework of analysis of the theory of adoption of technology, organization and environment (TOE) and the theory of “mindfulness of adoption”. The case study method has advantages when verification is still questioned or the application of certain theories in practice as phenomena and contexts that occur in the field in accordance with the application of blockchain technology into a relatively new business, both technically and practically in the field.

The findings indicate that there are no barriers to the availability of blockchain technology for technology adoption. The characteristics of this technology are very suitable for solving financing and supply chain business problems in the agricultural industry. However, the adoption of blockchain technology in agriculture shows that there is complexity in the organizational context involving internal and external organizations. The number of organizations and small parties involved in the agricultural process challenges the adoption of blockchain technology as new technology. Then, the external environment of technology, especially government regulations in developing countries, is still an obstacle to the adoption of blockchain technology.

This study faces several limitations, namely, the limited case of implementation of the blockchain technology due to the novelty of technology and government regulation. So that further research related to the adoption of blockchain technology needs to be done using field data such as surveys. Research related to the connectivity of the banking industry and other financial institutions also needs to be explored further, especially in creating a data-based credit risk model of the blockchain system.

On the practical side, case studies of technology adoption and its relationship with the financing of agricultural business are still little explored so this study contributes to exploring the application of blockchain technology in the agricultural industry. The adoption of blockchain technology has an impact not only on farmers but also on all parties involved in the supply chain including banks, insurance and other financial institutions. In addition, the distributed data exchange business model using blockchain technology is a new business model in the agriculture industry.

Lack of access to finance is one of the major contributing to low profitability in agriculture. Various policy interventions were performed for promoting access to finance. However, access to finance always remained one of the biggest challenges to Indian policymakers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the policy interventions in the areas of agriculture finance.

This paper makes an attempt to explore the relation of earlier policy initiatives with the current microfinance industry as well. The data for the paper are collected from Reserve Bank of India Archive Museum at Pune. This Museum is having huge collection of archives of policy documents of the Indian financial sector and is one of its kinds in India.

The study concludes that many of the interventions of today were earlier experimented or proposed in the past but, due to some or the other reason those, interventions were not successful. The study concludes that if those interventions had been implemented that time, it would have taken India in one of the tops in the list of financial inclusion.

This paper is a unique in its feature as it has tried to link the evolution of agriculture finance and the microfinance industry of India as microfinance is an integral part of agricultural finance in India.

The study aims to analyse the role of finance in the agro-industrialisation nexus in Nigeria using annual data on manufacturing value added, agricultural value added and volume of finance availed to the agricultural sector from 1981 to 2015.

To establish the presence of a long-run relationship, the error correction model and bounds cointegration techniques are employed. Likewise, the model is augmented to test whether the associated relationship between industrial output and agricultural output depends on access to finance by farmers with the inclusion of an interaction term.

Some salient contributions to the literature are as follows: agriculture and finance are strong and positive predictors of industrialisation in the long run; in the short run, past realisations of industrial output and finance have significant asymmetric effects on industrial output; the explanatory power of agriculture decreases with the growth of the financial system; and the long-run results validate the role of finance in the agro-industrialisation nexus.

Given these findings, achieving growth in the agricultural sector that will induce desired industrialisation should be prioritised by the government through agencies such as the central bank, financial intermediaries and other stakeholders with a view to making agricultural financing a major concern for sustainable domestic consumption and industrial growth.